Looking forward to the post-nerf meta. So many great decks floating beneath shaman-stone and waiting for their time to shine. Hero Power Hunter, Highlander Hunter, Pirate Warrior, Dragon Druid are my places to go at the moment, with Deathrattle Rogue waiting around the corner for someone with better deckbuilding skills then me.
I initially wanted to keep around 1.000 gold to start saving for the solo content, then decided to buy more packs because of the incoming nerfs. Ended up with a lot of useless junk and no nerf candidates. Should have kept the gold.
Yes, it should be much lower. Sure you can get really lucky (I got 3 in a row during the descent of dragons pack openings) but most people only remember the times when they get unlucky and that can leave a sour taste. It's fairly ludicrous to spend the same amount of money on hearthstone as a AAA game and only be guaranteed 2 out of 23 legendaries. Also, epics should not have duplicates. I feel like Blizzard deliberately make certain class specific epics OP in order to drive up the deck-building cost (I'm looking at you dragon's pack), while making the neutral epics junk.
Make the hero power/Invoke Galakrond's Fury summon a 1/1 with Rush instead of a 2/1.
Make Galakrond, the Tempest's Battlecry summon 1, 2 and 4 4/4's with Rush, instead of 2 2/2, 4/4 or 8/8's with Rush.
This would also balance the Corrupt Elementalist as it will have much lower impact when played. Faceless Corruptor should only be nerfed if the data shows it's a problem in multiple classes. It's not just Shaman that benefits here and shouldn't be included in a nerf that tries to rebalance Shaman's power level.
Finally, Mogu Fleshshaper is just a dumb card in my opinion and shouldn't exist in the first place. They could consider Hall of Faming it with the next rotation or just nerf it into oblivion, by changing its cost to 12 or having the cost reduction only look at Friendly minions.
I am two pairs and an unknown - you run two of it in your deck, which shuffle two into your opponents; how many more weasels will spawn is unknown
Not the class, but the colour of Rogue - no idea
My effect has nothing to do with my art - true, the weasel looks quite alive (in contrast to deathrattle)
I never end if you let me start - check
Ask my holder, the man shot dead - I'm not into WoW lore, but there are only two human male heros and weasel is mainly played in priest
Playing me doesn't get you ahead - it's all about triggering the deathrattle as often as possible
Current leaderboard:
KANSAS
8
DestroyerR
7
MurlocAggroB
6
anchorm4n
3
shaveyou
3
Almaniarra
3
madcat
1
kkiuu
1
Michael
1
GameTheory345
1
Edit: A, I just saw that the leaderboard was added to the original post, no more updates needed from my side. Thanks! Try table width 250 though, so all the names fit in.
We can agree to differ I guess. For my own part I've never been able to point out this card being a problem when I lose my match and certainly not at turn 5-6. Similarly, I've never been tempted to keep the card in my mulligan unless I got a 1 drop and/or 3 drop in hand.
For what its worth, this is not the case with Corridor Creeper when it was played in every deck. It was a hard mulligan for this card in every matchup and that was why it was nerfed to the ground.
The card is nowhere near the levels of power demonstrated by the cards listed above and past cards like Corridor Creeper and Bonemare. I would argue that its at the cliff edge of busted. Probably as intended.
Correct. It is not near, it is better. Free 5/4 with rush is better than free 5/5 or pesudo 4/4 with charge+taunt if you have board. And It allows you to not be punished by your mistakes. Behind on board? Faceless Corruptor. Enemy left a 1/1 on board instead of full clear? Faceless Corruptor. Enemy DID clear your board? Faceless Corruptor+1/1. In aggro match up you can lose a board, then play Faceless Corruptor and instantly win it. The game of HS becomes the game of "Who Drew Faceless Corruptor First". If not for the absolute madness of Gala Shaman everone would be hating on this card instead. As they should.
It's deceptively good, but it's got a really steep learning curve. I still haven't gotten it optimal, but it's absolutely promising. The main issue is hand restrictions, and the Lackeys (mainly the newest one) can be particularly frustrating--if you had unlimited hand space, this deck could have a nerf-worthy winrate against non-aggro metas. Decks that have minimal threats in the early turns let you do everything you need to do to pretty consistently set up lethals. Keep in mind though that Hearthstone's small hand size forces you to think very quickly at times, so you have to be pretty proficient at on-the-fly addition, subtraction, and multiplication (just times two, really). You also have to have a pretty good APM, since you're at the mercy of slow battlecry animations.
I've been meaning to write a properly comprehensive primer but that's a pretty time consuming and daunting task, and I think that time would be better spent on actually getting better and improving the deck further. If it's interesting enough to you and dust isn't really a problem, 800 is a small price.
100% agree, this is the most one-terrible-deck meta ever (although it used to say always) the complete dominance of one deck wasn't so far the case. We saw a lot of times rock-paper-scissor meta, but now it's just rock, a lot of scissors and no paper at all.
The most sad thing is, there are plenty of good and fun decks, but they are in the shade of shaman super deck.
Really don't know what the design team though if they printed mentioned cards all together. If even a single cart itself is good enough to be in competitive play.
Great article. It’s such a waste of an expansion start, and completely unbelievable how they managed to give shamans more overpowered battlecry minions
The card is definitely busted. But being a neutral card means that I get to play a similarly busted card as do my opponent. And that's why I think team5 would probably wait for more data before nerfing this to oblivion.
The problem with galakrond shaman is that most of the cards listed is basically only available to shaman. Had Corrupt Elementalist been a neutral card the calls for it to be put down would probably not been unanimous
The card is nowhere near the levels of power demonstrated by the cards listed above and past cards like Corridor Creeper and Bonemare. I would argue that its at the cliff edge of busted. Probably as intended.
The legendary cards distribution is fine what is not fine is the epic card distribution.. Epics are too rare for how many you need.. There are too many bad epics for them to be as rare as they are now..
Or you know make common cards yield more dust just a small increase from 5 to 10 will go a long way...
There was a similar case with jade druid in koft, but at least you could text Skulking Geist and feel good about the match up.. But what card can beat so much diversity and rushers? None..
Faceless Corruptor - I'm probably the minority here but I really don't see this card as an issue even if it was included in every deck. Its condition requires a minion on board to play on curve and two 5/4 on turn 5-6 isn't really that bad considering that the opponent can do the same. But the reasoning with Bonemare resonates, so if this gets nerfed at all, it would probably be bumped to 6 mana
Its condition requires you to have ANYTHING on board or Lackey in hand. Card is busted and shouldve never been printed.
I'm curious to know if you've tried using Tasty Flyfish. So far, I've found that it's really easy to draw 1-2 Anubasaths before you can find Apothecary. I feel like having another handbuff deathrattle in the deck would help with apothecary consistency I have yet to test it tho
<In response to AliRadicali> My point was precisely that it wouldn't affect the majority of players, just the ones who got unlucky. I just thought that it is kind of unnecessary to allow for players to get exceedingly unlucky, as it seems to piss people off more than the Hearthstone devs should really want. Also, if players were guaranteed to have a legendary for every 20 packs they buy I think people would feel a lot better about buying lots of card packs, which I think would help Blizzard too
Great meta report on shamanstone. I like how blizzard kept the most OP Galakrond shaman cards until the last reveal date only for us to see nothing but those few cards from launch.
Probable nerf contenders and some opinions:
Corrupt Elementalist - Mana increase. Blizzard don't wave the nerf stick around on effects that much and I don't see them doing so now. Expecting it to be 7 mana, since at 6 it still seems too good not to include.
Dragon's Pack - Mana increase for the same reason above. Probably at 6. Without good invoke cards, this is dead weight in the hand
Galakrond - I'm pretty sure this would not get hit. But if it does then its probably going to affect the size of the raging elementals from the battlecry. Two 6/6 with rush, still playable. But with a nerf to elemetalist, it might still be "fair" for two 8/8 rush as a reward for playing Galakrond shaman.
Faceless Corruptor - I'm probably the minority here but I really don't see this card as an issue even if it was included in every deck. Its condition requires a minion on board to play on curve and two 5/4 on turn 5-6 isn't really that bad considering that the opponent can do the same. But the reasoning with Bonemare resonates, so if this gets nerfed at all, it would probably be bumped to 6 mana
Special mention:
Mogu Fleshshaper - Don't know why this card exist for a class with evolve options, or why it has rush. But it has dodged every nerf swings since SoU so let us hope and pray he gets the hit this time.
I wouldn't mind seeing more legendaries but I don't think this is a very strong argument or a very good solution. The pity timer is a backstop, a condition that will hardly ever be met. In my experience the average frequency of getting a legendary is about once per 20 packs, which means you have to open twice the expected number of packs for the pity timer to kick in. In other words, suppose they changed it to 35 packs: in practice it'd hardly ever matter because it's still a lot more likely you'll open a legendary naturally before you get pitied.
I'd rather see the base rate of legendaries increased a little, which would make sense considering how the total number of legendaries per set has increased and considering how many legendaries are critical centerpieces in specific decks.
It would be interesting if they made him cost 6 and only for friendly minions. This way you can still get his cost to a minimum of 0, but he could only consistently cost 0 if you play him in a swarm deck. Right now you can slot him into any deck and as long as your opponent is playing any significant amount of minions you can easily play him for nothing.
Mini-Maxi Dragon Rogue
Hey! Thanks for your idea!
I like the idea behind using Tasty Flyfish, but its deathrattle is much weaker than Anubisath Warbringer, and it just is too risky to run it in the deck, in case Necrium Apothecary draws it.
Yeah, drawing both deathrattle sucks, but it sometimes happens :/
The Pepper Thread - Share Some Good Vibes!
Looking forward to the post-nerf meta. So many great decks floating beneath shaman-stone and waiting for their time to shine. Hero Power Hunter, Highlander Hunter, Pirate Warrior, Dragon Druid are my places to go at the moment, with Deathrattle Rogue waiting around the corner for someone with better deckbuilding skills then me.
Group Therapy! Need to blow off some steam? Mega salty? Here's the place!
I initially wanted to keep around 1.000 gold to start saving for the solo content, then decided to buy more packs because of the incoming nerfs. Ended up with a lot of useless junk and no nerf candidates. Should have kept the gold.
Should the pity timer be lower?
Yes, it should be much lower. Sure you can get really lucky (I got 3 in a row during the descent of dragons pack openings) but most people only remember the times when they get unlucky and that can leave a sour taste. It's fairly ludicrous to spend the same amount of money on hearthstone as a AAA game and only be guaranteed 2 out of 23 legendaries. Also, epics should not have duplicates. I feel like Blizzard deliberately make certain class specific epics OP in order to drive up the deck-building cost (I'm looking at you dragon's pack), while making the neutral epics junk.
Standard Meta Report #15 - Fixing (Yet Another) Shaman Meta
Predicted that shaman would have been top tier before, and also the faceless nerf.
Now I think that shaman will still tier1 even after nerfs!
Standard Meta Report #15 - Fixing (Yet Another) Shaman Meta
I see quite a few suggested nerfs that would completely kill Shaman altogether mentioned here. Surely that can't be the point.
To 'fix' Galakrond, the Tempest I'd suggest just 2 nerfs:
This would also balance the Corrupt Elementalist as it will have much lower impact when played.
Faceless Corruptor should only be nerfed if the data shows it's a problem in multiple classes. It's not just Shaman that benefits here and shouldn't be included in a nerf that tries to rebalance Shaman's power level.
Finally, Mogu Fleshshaper is just a dumb card in my opinion and shouldn't exist in the first place. They could consider Hall of Faming it with the next rotation or just nerf it into oblivion, by changing its cost to 12 or having the cost reduction only look at Friendly minions.
[Game] Card Treasure Hunt (The Resurrection Attempt)
Weasel Tunneler?
I am two pairs and an unknown - you run two of it in your deck, which shuffle two into your opponents; how many more weasels will spawn is unknown
Not the class, but the colour of Rogue - no idea
My effect has nothing to do with my art - true, the weasel looks quite alive (in contrast to deathrattle)
I never end if you let me start - check
Ask my holder, the man shot dead - I'm not into WoW lore, but there are only two human male heros and weasel is mainly played in priest
Playing me doesn't get you ahead - it's all about triggering the deathrattle as often as possible
Current leaderboard:
Edit: A, I just saw that the leaderboard was added to the original post, no more updates needed from my side. Thanks! Try table width 250 though, so all the names fit in.
Standard Meta Report #15 - Fixing (Yet Another) Shaman Meta
We can agree to differ I guess. For my own part I've never been able to point out this card being a problem when I lose my match and certainly not at turn 5-6. Similarly, I've never been tempted to keep the card in my mulligan unless I got a 1 drop and/or 3 drop in hand.
For what its worth, this is not the case with Corridor Creeper when it was played in every deck. It was a hard mulligan for this card in every matchup and that was why it was nerfed to the ground.
Standard Meta Report #15 - Fixing (Yet Another) Shaman Meta
Correct. It is not near, it is better. Free 5/4 with rush is better than free 5/5 or pesudo 4/4 with charge+taunt if you have board. And It allows you to not be punished by your mistakes. Behind on board? Faceless Corruptor. Enemy left a 1/1 on board instead of full clear? Faceless Corruptor. Enemy DID clear your board? Faceless Corruptor+1/1. In aggro match up you can lose a board, then play Faceless Corruptor and instantly win it. The game of HS becomes the game of "Who Drew Faceless Corruptor First". If not for the absolute madness of Gala Shaman everone would be hating on this card instead. As they should.
Galakrond Storm Rogue
It's deceptively good, but it's got a really steep learning curve. I still haven't gotten it optimal, but it's absolutely promising. The main issue is hand restrictions, and the Lackeys (mainly the newest one) can be particularly frustrating--if you had unlimited hand space, this deck could have a nerf-worthy winrate against non-aggro metas. Decks that have minimal threats in the early turns let you do everything you need to do to pretty consistently set up lethals. Keep in mind though that Hearthstone's small hand size forces you to think very quickly at times, so you have to be pretty proficient at on-the-fly addition, subtraction, and multiplication (just times two, really). You also have to have a pretty good APM, since you're at the mercy of slow battlecry animations.
I've been meaning to write a properly comprehensive primer but that's a pretty time consuming and daunting task, and I think that time would be better spent on actually getting better and improving the deck further. If it's interesting enough to you and dust isn't really a problem, 800 is a small price.
Standard Meta Report #15 - Fixing (Yet Another) Shaman Meta
100% agree, this is the most one-terrible-deck meta ever (although it used to say always) the complete dominance of one deck wasn't so far the case. We saw a lot of times rock-paper-scissor meta, but now it's just rock, a lot of scissors and no paper at all.
The most sad thing is, there are plenty of good and fun decks, but they are in the shade of shaman super deck.
Really don't know what the design team though if they printed mentioned cards all together. If even a single cart itself is good enough to be in competitive play.
Standard Meta Report #15 - Fixing (Yet Another) Shaman Meta
Great article. It’s such a waste of an expansion start, and completely unbelievable how they managed to give shamans more overpowered battlecry minions
Hearthstone Balance Changes Confirmed For Next Week
OK that does it for me until the nerfs. There is no way you can outtempo a constant stream of 'free' 2/1 rush minions.
Standard Meta Report #15 - Fixing (Yet Another) Shaman Meta
The card is definitely busted. But being a neutral card means that I get to play a similarly busted card as do my opponent. And that's why I think team5 would probably wait for more data before nerfing this to oblivion.
The problem with galakrond shaman is that most of the cards listed is basically only available to shaman. Had Corrupt Elementalist been a neutral card the calls for it to be put down would probably not been unanimous
The card is nowhere near the levels of power demonstrated by the cards listed above and past cards like Corridor Creeper and Bonemare. I would argue that its at the cliff edge of busted. Probably as intended.
Should the pity timer be lower?
The legendary cards distribution is fine what is not fine is the epic card distribution.. Epics are too rare for how many you need.. There are too many bad epics for them to be as rare as they are now..
Or you know make common cards yield more dust just a small increase from 5 to 10 will go a long way...
Standard Meta Report #15 - Fixing (Yet Another) Shaman Meta
There was a similar case with jade druid in koft, but at least you could text Skulking Geist and feel good about the match up.. But what card can beat so much diversity and rushers? None..
Standard Meta Report #15 - Fixing (Yet Another) Shaman Meta
Its condition requires you to have ANYTHING on board or Lackey in hand. Card is busted and shouldve never been printed.
Mini-Maxi Dragon Rogue
I'm curious to know if you've tried using Tasty Flyfish. So far, I've found that it's really easy to draw 1-2 Anubasaths before you can find Apothecary. I feel like having another handbuff deathrattle in the deck would help with apothecary consistency I have yet to test it tho
Should the pity timer be lower?
<In response to AliRadicali> My point was precisely that it wouldn't affect the majority of players, just the ones who got unlucky. I just thought that it is kind of unnecessary to allow for players to get exceedingly unlucky, as it seems to piss people off more than the Hearthstone devs should really want. Also, if players were guaranteed to have a legendary for every 20 packs they buy I think people would feel a lot better about buying lots of card packs, which I think would help Blizzard too
[Game] Card Treasure Hunt (The Resurrection Attempt)
No.
Standard Meta Report #15 - Fixing (Yet Another) Shaman Meta
Great meta report on shamanstone. I like how blizzard kept the most OP Galakrond shaman cards until the last reveal date only for us to see nothing but those few cards from launch.
Probable nerf contenders and some opinions:
Corrupt Elementalist - Mana increase. Blizzard don't wave the nerf stick around on effects that much and I don't see them doing so now. Expecting it to be 7 mana, since at 6 it still seems too good not to include.
Dragon's Pack - Mana increase for the same reason above. Probably at 6. Without good invoke cards, this is dead weight in the hand
Galakrond - I'm pretty sure this would not get hit. But if it does then its probably going to affect the size of the raging elementals from the battlecry. Two 6/6 with rush, still playable. But with a nerf to elemetalist, it might still be "fair" for two 8/8 rush as a reward for playing Galakrond shaman.
Faceless Corruptor - I'm probably the minority here but I really don't see this card as an issue even if it was included in every deck. Its condition requires a minion on board to play on curve and two 5/4 on turn 5-6 isn't really that bad considering that the opponent can do the same. But the reasoning with Bonemare resonates, so if this gets nerfed at all, it would probably be bumped to 6 mana
Special mention:
Mogu Fleshshaper - Don't know why this card exist for a class with evolve options, or why it has rush. But it has dodged every nerf swings since SoU so let us hope and pray he gets the hit this time.
Should the pity timer be lower?
Question: Should the pity timer be lower?
Answer: yes.
I couldn't understand why any player wouldn't want to see more glowing orange card-backs
Should the pity timer be lower?
I wouldn't mind seeing more legendaries but I don't think this is a very strong argument or a very good solution. The pity timer is a backstop, a condition that will hardly ever be met. In my experience the average frequency of getting a legendary is about once per 20 packs, which means you have to open twice the expected number of packs for the pity timer to kick in. In other words, suppose they changed it to 35 packs: in practice it'd hardly ever matter because it's still a lot more likely you'll open a legendary naturally before you get pitied.
I'd rather see the base rate of legendaries increased a little, which would make sense considering how the total number of legendaries per set has increased and considering how many legendaries are critical centerpieces in specific decks.
Standard Meta Report #15 - Fixing (Yet Another) Shaman Meta
It would be interesting if they made him cost 6 and only for friendly minions. This way you can still get his cost to a minimum of 0, but he could only consistently cost 0 if you play him in a swarm deck. Right now you can slot him into any deck and as long as your opponent is playing any significant amount of minions you can easily play him for nothing.
Standard Meta Report #15 - Fixing (Yet Another) Shaman Meta
Smells like full dust refund ^^